Solar Nova Scotia
Annual General Meeting
The meeting was brought to order at 7:00pm.
| Susan Atkinson | (902) 532-2720 | atkinson.davis@ns.sympatico.ca |
| Robin Barrett | (902) 864-1955 | robin.barrett@ns.sympatico.ca |
| Norval Collins | 455-8417(h) 425-4802(w) | ncollins@fox.nstn.ca |
| Jennifer Corson | corson@chebucto.ns.ca | |
| Brian Davis | 532-2720 | atkinson.davis@ns.sympatico.ca |
| Alexa Fotheringham | drew.alexa@ns.sympatico.ca | |
| Robert Fraser | 469-9088(h) | phaedra@accesswave.ca |
| Lara Gibson | 422-3822 | g.lara@eudoramail.com |
| Tom Goodwin | (902)839-2417(h) 489-4049(w) | oceanexp@atcon.com |
| Wayne Groszko | 429-0787 | groszko@atm.dal.ca |
| Shawna Henderson | 757-3760(h) 471-6992(w) | abri@istar.ca |
| Allan Hennigar | 443-6280 | ahennig@is.dal.ca |
| Chris Hopgood | (902) 479-0811 | chris_hopgood@scotia-mcleod.com |
| Larry Hughes | 494-3950 | larry.hughes@dal.ca |
| Tom Krausse | 823-1970(h) 497-6993(cell) | acorn@ns.sympatico.ca |
| Daniel MacKay | 455-8417(h) 494-danm(w) | Daniel.MacKay@Dal.Ca |
| Grant MacKenzie | 420-3468 | grant@clean.ns.ca |
| Gema de Patricio Casas | (902) 245-2412 | gema@wvda.com |
| Richard Peckham | (902) 835-6918 | af930@chebucto.ns.ca |
| Keith Robertson | 477-8480(h) 422-1557(w) | Keith.Robertson@ns.sympatico.ca |
| Don Roscoe | 852-3789 fax: 852-3789 | |
| Kevin Saunders | 757-2426 (902) 456-1510 |
Regrets: Carolyn Green
Another great year for Solar Nova Scotia, with all indications that 2000 will be even better! Keith Robertson, our membership man, reports that membership has stayed pretty constant at 44 individual and 12 corporate. We're looking forward to an increase in membership as new people get involved to help with Rise and Shine, the 2000 national solar and alternative energy conference being held in October in Halifax. You'll hear more about this later from Keith Robertson, Conference Chair.
Last year we again published three newsletters, which were distributed to members and given out at the Spring and Fall Homes Shows. We also hosted two solar tours following each home show. We looked at a pair of fascinating houses overlooking St. Margaret's Bay in the spring - one was a straw bale house and the other was a passive solar high mass structure. In the fall we looked at two places in West Dover - one was an amazing passive solar addition that served as an attractive display lounge for John Little's iron work, and the other was a sheltered profile home built in a very exposed location. Thanks for our members for helping with the newsletters and the tours.
We've continued to share a booth with Thermodynamics at the Spring show. This year we face some uncertainty because the Home Builder's Association have set up their own home show and we've not sure if we should take part in both. We hope to continue our presence in the traditional Spring and Fall shows where we get good exposure to the public.
The Solar Shelter Manual continued to be popular and is available at a number of locations, including the Nova Scotia Government Bookstore. We still have a healthy stock of Solar Primers as well. Don Roscoe continued to offer his excellent Solar Shelter Courses. If you're not familiar with them, ask him for details.
Although SNS has had a rudimentary web page for a couple of years, last year it was recreated by a couple of Dalhousie Commmerce students, with members of the Board providing content. It was featured as the Chebucto Community Net page for October. The URL is http://chebucto.ns.ca/Technology/SolarNS/. The page gets a dozen or so hits per day, and we get a couple of queries per month from it.
Solar Nova Scotia continued to meet informally at Maxwell's Plum on Friday nights between 5 and 7 pm. Come down for a chat with the regular crew of architects, builders, researchers, techies and others.
We also want to launch a Millennium Solar Home Inventory project at the Rise and Shine Conference. We've got a lot of the groundwork done, including meetings with George Foote and Brian Hayes at NS Natural Resources, but we need someone to wrestle the funding submission together. Dan Mackay will describe the project a little later.
Welcome to new members who are here tonight. Hopefully we'll see a lot of you as we continue to organize the exciting national conference.
| Statement of Receipts and Expenditures for the year ended November 30, 1999. | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Expenditures | Receipts | ||
| Bank service charges / interest | 13.20 | 0.18 | |
| Projects | 0.00 | 0.00 | |
| Operating Expenses / Memberships | 1,423.81 | 2,135.00 | |
| Totals | 1,437.01 | 2,135.18 | |
| Excess of receipts over expenditures | 698.17 |
| Opening balance, December 1, 1998 | 574.51 |
| Closing balance, November 30, 1999 | 1,272.68 |
| Assets | Liabilities | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Cash on hand | 698.17 | Members' equity | 2,015.17 |
| Inventory T-Shirts (16) | 160.00 | Outstanding Liability | 0.00 |
| Manuals (89) | 1,157.00 | ||
| Total | 2,015.17 | Balancing total | 2,015.17 |
| Projected Yearly $ Profile 2000 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Income | Expenses | ||
| Membership 50 x $15 | 750.00 | Telephone | 390.00 |
| Corp. Memb. 14 x $50 | 700.00 | Postage | 100.00 |
| Manuals 60 x $6 | 360.00 | Newsletter x 3 | 300.00 |
| T-Shirts | 10.00 | Home Show x 3 | 900.00 |
| Society Registration | 25.00 | ||
| Environment Network | 25.00 | ||
| 1,820.00 | 1,740.00 | ||
Robin asked what effect the R&S conference would have on SNS finances. The conference should leave us with extra money.
Norval moved acceptance of the report, Robin seconded, passed.
| Position | Incumbent |
|---|---|
| Chair | Norval Collins, Planner |
| Vice Chair | Ron Bulmer, Library Assistant |
| Treasurer | Don Roscoe, Designer |
| Secretary | Daniel MacKay, NOC Manager |
| Membership | Keith Robertson, Designer |
| Directors | Robert Fraser, Robin Barrett, Shawna Henderson, Lewis MacRury, Susan MacRury, Kevin Saunders, Larry White, John Young |
Kevin moved that the slate be accepted, John Ross seconded, motion passed.
Clean Nova Scotia is doing home tuneups which include some data collection. Grant MacKenzie asked whether a liason between SNS and Clean NS would be useful. There was agreement. Grant offered to help with the Millenium Home Inventory by adding a checkbox on their data collection sheet indicating some solar components to the building.
Clean Nova Scotia has a permanent display space. Grant asked if we would like to share a portion of that. There was general agreement.
Robin asked if he should go ahead with a letter to the Portland Cement Association to encourage research into the thermal storage qualities of concrete. There was agreement.
Don presented some information about the Spring Home Shows - there are now two. We will probably attend both.
We discussed the idea of charging for attendance to the Solar Tours. While this plan would collect some money, it would also mean we would be asking someone to open their home to us, and then charging people for it. Also, it is one main way of getting new members, and encouraging this is probably the best use for the tours.
JD Surrette told SNS about Surrette Batteries, the history of the company, current products and markets, and also gave a technical presentation on battery mechanics and chemistry relevant to solar enthusiasts, including which ratings are important, maintenance and cleaning of your battery array.
Dan presented a plan for this project, which SNS executive have been working for about a year and which is approaching the proposal phase. The MHI project will collect information about solar homes in NS and make that info available on the web as a searchable database. In the process it will generate much publicity for SNS and alternative energy, and also produce material for publications, and will be usable for calculation of solar contribution in Nova Scotia. Dan invited any interested members to get involved.
Keith presented the details for the Rise & Shine 2000 Conference, to be held Oct 21-24th, 2000 at the Lord Nelson. The conference will be co-located with the Use Building Materials Association annual meeting, and there should be a lot of crossover interest. We are expecting about 200 participants, and two or three simultaneous sessions. If you'd like to join the team, there are dozens of tasks large and small over the next six months. Contact Keith if you'd like to get involved.